The Ephemerality of Muses
by HelloMiho
Summary: Michiru reflects on her past art collections and the women who inspired them.


It was when she started painting that she noticed the deep, gaping void in her. It was not normal, she learned, to be so cold, so detached from emotions and other people. She had never noticed, having grown up in a cold home where displays of emotions were considered unseemly and uncouth, where a pretense of perfection and luxury was all that mattered. But when her various art instructors gave prompts about happiness and pure joy, Michiru watched her fellow artists immediately begin to paint, bright bursts of colour blossoming on their canvases as her own remained barren.

She faked it, painting shallow pictures of sunny landscapes and other such typical "happy" scenes, and if they lacked emotional depth, her teachers said nothing, taken aback by the sheer technical skills she had quickly mastered.

As she grew older and embarked on the lonely and wretched path of an artist to her family's great disapproval, she learned that other people served as fine, if temporary substitutes for the emotions she seemed to lack.

* * *

Elza.

The runner had led to the collection titled Grey although each painting was anything but. Bold flashes of sun kissed hues and flares of magenta proudly streaked each canvas even as they went against every artistic convention she had ever been taught.

Towering over most other females with tanned and toned muscles, Elza stuck out from the backdrop of conventional society. She was as unapologetically loud and brash as her bright pink hair, and Michiru revelled in being with a person so sure of herself. The single-minded determination with which Elza ran in pursuit of her dream fascinated Michiru, an entirely foreign concept to her.

She went to one of her training sessions to see just what Elza was always working towards and found herself somewhat disappointed that it seemed to only consist of running fast laps in a circle. Michiru contented herself with the glorious vision of the woman whose sweat made her skin shine, and and appreciated the renewed vigor and passion with which Elza pounced on her in the locker room.

Their fights were just as passionate although they always ended with Elza's resigned yielding (as Elza was unable to stay angry at Michiru for long while Michiru held no such reservations). There was a curious thrill in seeing the vulnerability of the strong woman laid bare before her, but the feelings soon faded and Michiru followed suit.

* * *

Ami.

Warm cerulean shades encased in what seemed to be frosty veneers of ice in an illusory effect, this collection had been filled with mirages. She painted light bending in such extraordinary ways, critics effused about the ingenuity with which she had brought such intricate technical complexities to life.

Oh, Ami had been fun to tease with suggestive remarks that caused the prettiest of blushes to flutter upon her pale cheeks. And ever so often, the younger woman would bite back with a tongue so uncharacteristically naughty, it would fill Michiru with a fierce delight.

Ami was a medical student with a prodigious amount of intellect that served as a wall against other people who saw only her scores, not unlike the talent that Michiru had. The difference, however, was that Michiru was glad to be distanced from others (barring the rare woman who piqued her interest), while Ami all too visibly desired to be accepted, to the point of insecurity.

It was with a detached curiosity and fascination that Michiru frequently gazed at a studying Ami. Her heart seemed as vulnerable and clear as the ones detailed in the textbooks Ami spent her time poring over.

In another world or in another time, would Michiru ever have been like her?

But even this question was unable to capture her interest for long and she left not too soon after.

* * *

Usagi.

It was ironic that her first portrait was of the one woman she had never had. A pearlescent white dress cascaded to the ground around her kneeling legs with even paler hair streaming down from an unadorned head. Her hands clasped together in a heartfelt prayer as her face tilted towards the warm glow of the moonlight.

A tragic nostalgia of a time long gone hung over the collection and yet there was an unmistakable current of regality and power in each piece of artwork.

Michiru had first met the blonde when she had flirted with Chiba Mamoru out of principle rather than of genuine interest. He was handsome to be sure but her eyes quickly went to the blonde at his side, who was staring daggers at her.

Despite this heated first encounter, Michiru found herself quickly enveloped into Usagi's inner circle, although she didn't particularly care for anyone other than the blonde.

Usagi was a walking set of contradictions. An L2 at one of the most cutthroat law schools in the nation, the blonde possessed a compassion and innocence to her that Michiru didn't think she had ever had, even as a child. She bounced around and was forgetful nearly to the point of being ditsy, but when she spoke about her internship at the legal aid office and the people she had helped defend, even Michiru felt a strange stirring in her chest and an unsettling urge to follow.

She had a heart that unequivocally gave and gave, and Michiru never quite knew if she yearned to have that heart herself or to herself.

Usagi was invited to her studio once, and the girl had all too happily agreed at the prospect of being painted. She had Usagi wear nothing, covered only by a white silk sheet as she stood, and staring at the blushing blonde, Michiru wanted nothing but to devour this purity.

Then her artistry took over, and she saw the law student no longer, but the moon goddess of old, reborn.

Upon completing a draft that finally satisfied her standards, Michiru sauntered over to the blonde, an elegant hand delicately lifting the younger girl's chin towards her. In the small distance that existed between them at this moment, she saw a sad knowledge in Usagi's blue eyes that Michiru had not known existed and an imminent rejection.

The aqua haired woman smirked and leaned in to place a small kiss on the corner of her lips, before Usagi could voice the protest written on her guileless face. .

"You can put your clothes back on."

Michiru felt no disappointment that nothing more had happened between them. It had never been Usagi's body that had sparked her interest.

* * *

Setsuna.

An imposing set of doors, ornately embellished and yet not gaudily so. With its Romanesque columns and its iridescent crystalline exterior, it seemed to belong not to this time period or that, a certain air of timelessness around it.

Beautiful as it was, it seemed to tower over the viewer and cast an intimidating shadow, causing critics to praise her masterful use of perspective.

A foggy mist wrapped around the bottom of the doors before curling upwards in tendrils, also present in every other piece of the collection, creating a lonely and rather wistful ambience.

Two stunningly gorgeous women who cared more about their professions than other people, in Setsuna, Michiru had found a kindred soul. The void in herself seemed to recognise the terrifyingly vast depths in the physicist's wine coloured eyes.

Unlike the past women who had captured her interest, Setsuna was older than her and appropriately carried herself with an ever present elegance and maturity.

Without a question, Setsuna was the most skillful lover Michiru had ever had, as if the woman had had thousands of years of experience with which to perfect her methods. There was something almost timeless about being in her arms and although it unsettled Michiru, it gradually became a comfort.

She still saw the older woman sometimes, when the void rose up and loneliness seemed to suffocate her. Those nights, she'd let herself into Setsuna's apartment and curl up in her bed. The woman never seemed to startle at the sight of Michiru in her bed, no matter how many weeks or months had passed since their last time seeing each other.

* * *

Michiru had seen each woman fall in love in one way or the other with her, unable to resist succumbing to her despite the one sided nature of their relationships. Even Usagi, devoted as she was to Mamoru, had faced a strange pull to Michiru.

Cruel as she was, Michiru had noticed, and she had not cared.

When she no longer felt a stirring of creativity upon looking at their faces, when she no longer felt a surge of delight at their actions but instead found a droll predictability to them, when she found herself utterly bored of them, she left them without a word.

What reason was there to stay with them after they had outgrew their purpose?

The void in her seemed to grow with each new woman, taking more and more for her to feel any kind of emotion.

But then, there had been…

* * *

Haruka.

In a lull of boredom between muses, Michiru had somehow found herself in the audience of a motocross event. By the end of the race, Michiru felt her breath escape her at the sight of the tousled blonde hair and confidently triumphant face reveal itself from beneath a helmet. The screaming girls next to her had quickly alerted her to the popularity of this racer.

By the end of the night, Michiru had found herself in bed with the racer, who still seemed to be running off the high of winning. They were both young and attractive and it had only been natural they'd find their ways to each other.

Maintaining contact with Haruka had been the challenge.

Unbridled passion, fierce and uncontained, Haruka was the wind personified.

She seemed to stifle at any attempts to restrain her; when Michiru had first tried to sketch the sleeping outline of Haruka, she had failed as if the blonde fought against every stroke of her pencil, unwilling to be confined even in this way.

But Michiru was the ocean, ever persistent and patient. She would not lose this person, and within a short amount of time, even Haruka fell to her charms like a sailor to a siren's call, as Michiru also felt herself drawing closer to Haruka. They soon moved into a new apartment together, enjoying the benefits of being young, rich, and beautiful.

Michiru had never felt so inspired even as she postponed the release of her new exhibit again and again. For a while, it seemed as if the artist had finally found the one person she had spent her life waiting to find.

And then Michiru disappeared from their apartment, leaving not a single trace of her behind.

The next day, the newspapers announced the engagement of the Kaiou heiress to Furukawa Kei.

* * *

A/N: I'm currently facing a creative block with FOP, although rest assured, I have no intentions of discontinuing it. I have many future scenes written and an outline, but the current chapter is being difficult.

I really wanted to try to write a Michiru who's a drifter and near hedonist. She cares nothing about other people except for the art they inspire her to create, until of course, she meets Haruka. I already know where I want to go with this story so it's likely I'll continue to write it. I don't think it will be as long as I predict FOP to be, and despite the similarities this may seem to have with FOP, I have them going in different directions.


End file.
